Latest / Pod Save America / That'll Leave a Denmark

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That'll Leave a Denmark · Pod Save America

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• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we will celebrate two
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: of history's greatest advocates for peace, Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: and Donald Trump, by talking about the latter's threat to
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: invade Minnesota and Greenland. We'll also talk about Trump's new tariffs,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: his latest corrupt pardons, and polling that shows he's dragging
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: down his party's midterm chances. We'll also touch on the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: beef brewing between potential 2028 contenders on the Democratic side
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: And then Tommy talks to our pal Jason Zengerle about
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: his new book published by Crooked Media Reads that explores
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: the rise of Tucker Carlson. It's called Hated by All
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the Right People, and you can preorder it right now.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I both highly recommend folks listen to the interview with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Jason because he's really smart. He's been following Tucker forever,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: has known him forever. But also the book is incredible.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It's like an amazing look at who Tucker Carlson is,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the arc of his career from kind of like across
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media. Do you guys remember Tucker Carlson worked
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: at MSNBC.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: For a while? Sure do. It's hard to remember that.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Is it more of a hagiography?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: But it sort of tracks his trajectory and what he
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: has become and how that helps you understand the MAGA
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: movement and the incentive structure in the media in 2026.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It's truly excellent.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I'm very excited to read it. But first, we are
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: now a year into Trump's second term. And as expected,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the forces of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: are rallying to stop the president from capturing Minneapolis and
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: nuke especially now that Caracas has fallen. Trump announced over
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: the weekend that he'll be imposing a new 10% tariff
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: and Finland that he will raise to 25% by June
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: if Denmark doesn't let the U.S. buy Greenland, a purchase that,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: along with the tariffs, would be paid for by us,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: the American taxpayer. Then, in a wildly successful demonstration of
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: his mental fitness, our octogenarian leader texted... Norway's prime minister,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Jonas Garstor, that because Norway decided not to award Trump
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision that, again, the Norwegian
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: government has nothing to do with, he, quote, no longer
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: feels an obligation to think purely of peace, although it
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: will always be predominant, but can now think about what
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: is good and proper for the United States of America.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Trump then questioned why Denmark has a right to Greenland anyway, writing, quote,
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  Speaker 3: there are no written documents that It's only that a
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but also we
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: had boats landing there. The world is not secure. This
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: is how he ends it. The world is not secure
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  Speaker 3: unless we have complete and total control of Greenland. Thank you,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: President DJT. Protests erupted in Nuuk, Copenhagen, and other European cities,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: including at an NBA game in London during the national anthem.
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  Speaker 3: Let's listen. We're still there.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: We're still there.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: America's hot right now. Hottest country in the world. Golden age.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Good stuff. So I guess Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: was a little too late in giving her her peace
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: prize to Trump. So now we're going to war with Scandinavia.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Is that what's happening?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: There's something about this weekend being the one year mark.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And all these things overlapping kind of hit me at once.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about it, but Greg Bovino marching
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: around Minneapolis like gay Generalissimo Franco and the barely literate
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: threats to fucking Norway over... Greenland.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Via text. Do you think there was any emojis in
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: the text? Was it? So it was a text. It's
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: described as a letter. Everyone's described it as a letter,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: but the Times, which I trust the New York Times,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: it was a text. And then they, of course, retrofitted
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the text into a letter. And then that was what happened. Oh, man.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: A lot of texts give you anxiety. Imagine that one.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I guess the Norwegian prime minister texted Trump first along.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: And I think he had the Finnish Prime prime minister
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: on the text chain as well. That's a green bubble
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: chat right there. And then Trump responded in kind.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's pretty bleak. And I was really thinking about
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: what would it have been like one year ago, the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: night before Donald Trump is inaugurated and you can't sleep.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And so you go to social media and you say,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: here's some things I'm worried about. You would have been
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Said to be a crazy person.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Very much so.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about? Cooler heads will prevail.
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  Speaker 3: TDS.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And here we are.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: The invasion of Minneapolis, I might have been worried about
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: for sure. Sure, sure. Greenland did not see coming.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: No, that's a surprise. That is a surprise.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I have to say, there's so much about this that's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: amazing to me. The logic of, I'm not going to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: avoid killing people unless you give me a prize for it,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is just such a sixth grader. Like I'm not even
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: going to do my, if you won't let me play Xbox,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: like why even bother.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Trying my homework?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Also, yeah, as you mentioned, sitting members of parliament are
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: not allowed to be on the Nobel committee because they
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: didn't want it to be seen as like a government award.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I would also point out that the argument that boats
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: landing somewhere a few hundred years ago doesn't mean you
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  Speaker 1: own the place will come as a surprise to a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lot of these kind of like right-wing heritage Americans who
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: think they were the first residents of North America. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: then like, I just, it's worth, it's exhausting to, I
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: do want to just repeat that Trump has not solved
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: eight wars. Um, eight plus, yeah, not even close. He
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: says he ended a war between Egypt and Ethiopia that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: was never fought. Like, I don't know how to say
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that differently. There was never one. They have a longstanding
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: diplomatic dispute over a hydroelectric dam project, but there was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: never a war. He also includes Israel and Iran in there.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: You guys might recall the United States bombed Iran, um,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: as part of that conflict, which doesn't feel very Nobel
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: peace prizey. And I just, I do want to quickly
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: point out, I try not to do this often, but, um,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: With respect to Iran, Trump is probably directly responsible for
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: getting thousands of Iranian protesters killed because he tweeted that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: he would, quote, rescue them. Protesters, if they go to
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the street, they should take to the streets, take over
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: their government. Then there was a huge crackdown by the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Iranian regime. And it seems like the regime saw that tweet,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: decided to massacre the protesters before Trump could actually make
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a decision. And then Trump had tweeted this without his
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: team getting together to review options or without having an
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: aircraft carrier in the region that could actually facilitate some
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: sort of operation. And then there was this massive crackdown
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and he's since done nothing about it. So like, I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: just would love the press to give this a fraction
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: of the coverage they gave the Syria red line with
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Obama because it is essentially the same thing, but whatever.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: It seems like he put as much thought into that
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: as he did the text to Norway. Yes, here we are. Also,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: we did sign a treaty with Denmark in 1916 where
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: we recognized their sovereignty over Greenland. We then signed a
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: defense agreement in 2004, recognizing Greenland as an equal part
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: of the kingdom of Denmark. in the treaty that we
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  Speaker 3: signed way back when. That's when the Danes gave us
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: the Virgin Islands for $ 25 million in gold. It was
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: a good deal back then, yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I guess you're making some pretty good arguments.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: It's also fucking nuts.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, it's like you're trying
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: to use logic to persuade a silverback gorilla to put
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: that woman who fell into.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: The closure down.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not talking about Harambe.
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: There's another guerrilla incident? Oh, man.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: You think that's the first time a guerrilla's ripped off
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: somebody's face?
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, no. Grow up.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Grow up. Okay. They'll come for you.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Danish combat forces have arrived in Greenland.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Just hours before this recording. I was reading about some
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: of those European deployments. It was like 13 German troops.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I was like, what are we doing here? I think
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: the Danes have upped it today, which is good. This
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: is my thing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: They're like, what?
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: The European. We're all trying to do the, like, yeah,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: he's wrong because of this, that, and the other thing. But, like,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: so are the European leaders so far? Like, some of
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: them are a little further out there and, like, this
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: is ridiculous. And then, you know, like, Keir Starmer's out
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: there being like, well, we don't want to... There's got
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: to be some kind of a diplomatic solution to all this, right?
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Why don't they just put a bunch of fucking tanks
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: in Greenland and be like, all right, go for it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: You want to start a war within NATO? Go for it, Trump.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Trump's not going to do that. They don't have a
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: lot of tanks. Yeah, whatever they have. What do they have?
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: They're buying from us.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't choose?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I think they're all kind of They've sort of internalized
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: a certain lesson of how you deal with Trump as well.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Like this is like the root of lesson, which is
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: you can disagree amicably. But if you start to do
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: anything that challenges his ego, it gets worse. And they're
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: seeing if there's a way that they can agree themselves
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: out of a war for the territory of Greenland. I've
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: told this before, but I do remember. remember hearing kind
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: of an historian of Denmark and Greenland talking about how
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: hard it is to just sort of exist in Greenland,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: how unforgiving it is. And his joke was that if
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: anyone ever tried to invade Greenland, Denmark would have no
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: choice but to rescue them. So I do think some
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of the harsh nature of the terrain is part of it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Quite cold. See that NBC story too that Trump has been,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: he's starting to complain about Canada's vulnerability in the Arctic.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: The Arctic, I saw that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: The northern border of Canada.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I saw that.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: No conversations yet about sending any troops there or taking
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: over Canada. I mean, we did do the 51st state
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: thing a while back, but he's getting annoyed. So this
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: is how it starts.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Can I go full blue sky for a moment?
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: This place I'm not on. If you were to write
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: down the list of the things a president would do
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: to destroy America's standing in the world and make us
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: a pariah nation and kind of destroy our long-term prospects
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: as a leading economy, is there anything that you'd be
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: doing differently than what Trump is doing? Or is this
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: just the full list of things you would do to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: hand the world order over to China and Russia?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Via a dispute over Greenland, which is the most absurd,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: funniest and stupidest and thus typically American way to do it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: with our TV host at the head of the government.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: So it is, in some ways, fitting. And don't take
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: John's word for it.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: The oligarch that, you know, the United States was negotiating
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: with over the future of Gaza, in Ukraine, I mean,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Dmitry Kirill, or whatever the hell his name is, made
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: exactly that joke on Twitter.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: He's mocking us, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. The tariffs
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: are also, we haven't even talked about the tariffs, like,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: because the text kind of took over the tariff story today.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Kirill Dmitriyev, sorry, I got his name wrong. But like,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Now we're going back into, we're levying tariffs on ourselves again, right?
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: There's a new study out. 96% of the tariffs so
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: far have been borne by Americans, only 4% on foreign exporters.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: So now we're just charging Americans more for these tariffs
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: because of Greenland. And then if we end up buying
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Greenland as opposed to taking it by force, where's that
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: money coming from? I know he'll probably say, oh, it's
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: coming from the oil or the sale of the rare
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: earth minerals, but that's just a lie. So obviously it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: going to come from the treasury. So that's going to
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: be more money from us too. So that's great.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Good way to deal with costs. What is the logic
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: of these tariffs exactly? The emergency authority he's been abusing
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to put these tariffs in place? He's creating the emergency.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: He's the emergency. Greenland, the emergency is we must take
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Greenland and we must have tariffs until we have Greenland.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Besson was asked about this on television. He basically kind
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: of fumpered and had no defense for the claim that
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: the emergency is we want Greenland. What the fuck is
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: he talking about?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: He said the emergency was preventing an emergency. Yes, that's right.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: The emergency is preventing an emergency.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Well, by the time you guys listen to this, the
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court could have struck down the tariffs, but they're
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: also ready. The trade representative says he's ready with new
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: tariffs that somehow are going to be more legal than these.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: So they're all going to Davos. It's all going down
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: to Davos this week. Trump's going there with the other
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: European leaders. I just want to read you guys. This
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: is just sort of a sign of the times right now.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: This is a headline from Politico. A lead from Politico.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: The fear had been that Davos might be slipping into irrelevance.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: No more.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: U.S.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: President Donald Trump may be at odds with the rules-based
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: consensus-led global leadership that World Economic Forum stalwarts espouse, but
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: they owe him thanks this time. A record number of
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: world leaders are attending only because he is. Are you
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: kidding me? That is so stupid. Yeah. Yeah, that's what
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Politico sent. That's something that's happening there. What does that
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: even mean?
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: No world leader benefits from Davos being a place people
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: want to go to.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: The headline, it's Politico forecast, which is a new newsletter
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: that I have been sent non-consensually by Politico. And the
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: headline is Trump makes Davos matter again. Stop, stop. with that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I'm so discouraged.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: It's discouraging. I also, we have a bipartisan delegation that
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: is like meeting with the Danes and you got to
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: think like what, how impotent Congress is that like now
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: we send by part, we send codels abroad by person
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: delegations to be like, they're trying to reassure NATO and
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: the European allies that we're not actually going to take
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Greenland by force, but they can't do that because they're
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: not actually going to, they're not actually going to do anything.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: We talked about how around 75% of Americans oppose acquiring
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Greenland over 90% opposed acquiring Greenland by force, including most Republicans.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: which is why more Republicans in Congress are breaking with
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Trump on this than almost any other issue, though you
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: can already see some of them starting to get a
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: bit more comfortable with Trump's imperialist ambitions. Here's Ted Cruz
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: over the weekend.
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: I believe it is overwhelmingly in America's national interest to
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: acquire Greenland. Some folks in the press, they clutch their
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: pearls and they say, well, what do you mean acquiring Greenland?
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: How could that happen? Look, the whole history of America
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: has been a history of acquiring new lands and new territories.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's just the way it is. We just acquire things.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I just thought like we kind of, we got to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean. And yeah, some exceptions beyond that, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: we felt like that's the meat of it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems right.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: You know, like there's going to be, there's Alaska and
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: there's Hawaii and we've had some, we had some, you know,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: kind of. a little empire going for a while. There's
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: some territories like, Oh, that's right. Guam. Huh? I don't
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: remember what that was about. I think somebody, do we
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: go some new blew up some nuclear bombs near there
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: for a while when we were being the best country
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: in the world, but, but, but we're good now. I
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: thought I felt like we were kind of good.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: The sun, the sun must never set on the Mar-a-Lago empire.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I thought we were going to do like tech stuff.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: That was going to be our new thing. Our empire
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: was going to be with tech stuff.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I thought what was, uh, what was particularly notable about, uh,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Cruz's comments there is that, um, Here he is in 2016,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: speaking to us from the future.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, we're liable to wake up one morning and Donald,
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: if he were president, would have nuked Denmark. That's not
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: the temperament of a leader to keep this country safe.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Nailed it. Nailed it. Wow, Ted. How did he know?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Now he's like, let's do it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Lay off Heidi.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: That's when he was yelling about that. How are you
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: guys feeling about whether the overwhelming resistance to Trump taking
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Greenland will stop him from doing it?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I do wonder if Ted Cruz saw what happened to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy in Louisiana getting a Trump endorsed primary opponent
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and wondered if that could be me. But anyway, I mean,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I think that in terms of stopping Trump, I fear
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: that his preoccupation these days is more with legacy than
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: any kind of political standing. And I think he thinks
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: that adding Greenland to his resume, territorial expansion could be
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: like his historical legacy item. In theory, I guess Congress
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: could pass legislation to prevent hostilities. There could be like
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: some sort of War Powers Act, there could be, you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: barring funding for a Greenland operation. But I think you'd
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: need a veto proof majority. And then I think even
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if you got that, Trump would just be like, well,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care. Because under Article Two of the Constitution,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do whatever I want. So then, you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: you kind of get out like, okay, what comes next?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: It's like massive protests, a general strike that shuts down
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the economy. Like, I don't see Americans caring that much
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: about Greenland or NATO. But then internationally, to your point,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, Europe needs to work together and decide.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: They care enough to respond.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And that means either enormous tariffs on the US or
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the EU actually has a specific provision called the anti-coercion
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: tool that is designed for this scenario. It's designed for
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: us doing this or China doing something like this that
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: could basically shut off access to the European market. It
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: would create a trade war. It would further eviscerate NATO.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: It would make you question whether the US would back
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: any of these countries if the Russians invaded them and
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: all sorts of other problems. But it's just, you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: no one has figured out how to respond effectively.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I interviewed Senator Gallego on Friday's show and he
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: said he introduced a bipartisan legislation to stop the Greenland thing.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: He thinks he could get like a bunch of Republicans.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: But I don't know. Like you said, I don't know
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: if you can get 60. And and then does he
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: even pay attention? You know, I mean, the Democrats could
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: some I just saw someone on Twitter be like, they
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: should shut down the government over Greenland. Yes, we can
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: shut down the government of Greenland.
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: ICE.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Healthcare, we could do it all again.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Well, we can only shut down parts of the government
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: because there'll be some other spending bills that Democrats will
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: have already approved by the time we get to that.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's worth sort of taking a moment to
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: say what should happen. And of course, what should happen
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: is he should be impeached to remove from office immediately.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Just one of.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Many things on that list just this week.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, the fact that it's probably, you're probably
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: right that Congress can't by law stop the president from
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: conducting a lawless invasion of Greenland does point to sort
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of a deeper set of issues that we're not willing
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to to grapple with the tariffs that he's applying and
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: he's doing with authorities lent to him by Congress that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: they could take back at any moment, but they are
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: choosing not to. So they are going to allow Americans
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: to pay, as you said, 96%. And that is, you know,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: whatever their claims are, we are paying basically the entire
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: cost of this tax. That is the evidence. That is
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: from the Wall Street Journal. That is the evidence. We
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: are paying it. So the Republicans in Congress are cool
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: with imposing a massive tax on Americans, because Trump wants Greenland,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: a topic none of them even knew was going to
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: be a topic a year ago.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I also like there's a lot of people who are
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: like tweeting that national security strategy. And they're like, you
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: don't see the word Greenland anywhere in this. And I'm like, oh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: you got them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Contract driven guy. Consistency
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: is really the name of the game there.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're in the end user license agreement phase. That'll
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: I did notice the S & P is like a
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: half a percent off. It's all time high. So I
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: think the business world assumes this is just another taco
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: scenario and Trump will give up on this. But who knows?
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: We shall see. Now, in fairness, Trump did say that
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: even though he no longer feels obligated to think purely
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: of peace. it will still be predominant, which is probably
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: why invites went out over the weekend to world leaders
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: asking them to join Trump's Board of Peace, which, while
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: originally discussed as an entity to help oversee the rebuilding
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of Gaza, no longer mentions Gaza in the draft charter
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: that's been published and is now being talked about by
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the administration as an international peace-building organization. Among the leaders
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: who scored an invite is international war criminal Vladimir Putin.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: No word on how many countries will pony up the
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: $ 1 billion fee. that Trump is charging to become a
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: permanent member. You get the first three years free. It's
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: a little like it's a Columbia. First three years free
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: on the board. But then if you want a permanency,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: that's one bill.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And it's ads free.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: It is. And you get a NATO country if you
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: do the full term. I have a few questions on
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: this one. What happened at the Gaza part? Also, is
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Trump trying to start his own UN here? Is that
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: what's going on?
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Well, if you're going to start a UN, you do
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: need to put Vladimir Putin on the peace council. That
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: is the sort of the UN vibe. It's the first
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: time it made me think they were like the UN.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to see who's on his human rights council.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm pretty psyched.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So like what he announces, I think equal parts confusing
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and stupid. So I'll try to unpack it. Just on
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the Gaza peace, it's worth noting that there's a ceasefire
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in name only. There's like airstrikes constantly. Hundreds of Palestinians
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: have been killed since the ceasefire was announced. Hamas is
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: not disarmed. They have been attacking. Israel occupies half the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Gaza Strip. So it's just a fucking mess. So there's
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a bunch of things they announced. I'll try to unpack
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it just quickly. So the Times of Israel had the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: full text of the charter of the Board of Peace.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: As you noted, it does not mention Gaza. It seems
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: like the goal is to replace the United Nations, but
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: without all that annoying input from the other 192 countries
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that are part.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Of the UN.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: It's just like the US decides. Unless they're rich.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Well, the new answer is, he says, Trump is basically
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in charge. He gets to pick who's on the board.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: He gets to veto decisions, even if they are approved
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: by a majority of the board's members. It seems like
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the plan is for him to personally serve on the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: board as the chairman in perpetuity and then name his successor.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: This is not like a slot for the president. I'm
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: pretty sure it's like a for him thing. And in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: many ways, like the billion dollar fee is like the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: least of the problems with this thing, because there's also
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: an executive board under the leader level board.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: That is Jared Kushner.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Rubio, Tony Blair, random business dudes like Mark Rowan from
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Apollo Global Management. So there's a big crony capitalism piece here.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: But these are the people that are sort of like
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: day to day running the things. And they're going to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: solve the Middle East first.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And then there's another thing called the Gaza Executive Board
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that runs reconstruction in Gaza. But the Israelis hate that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: because it has reps from Qatar and Turkey. Then there's
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: another thing called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's like Palestinian technocrats. It's supposed to be the Palestinian government.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: But just on the board of peace, like, as you said,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I'm the first to admit, like the UN is a mess.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's been broken for decades. Like, and the problem is,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you know, the UN Security Council, like you get the US,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Russia or China viewing whatever goes through it that matters.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: But this just replaces it with Trump running the show.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: There's the absurdity of inviting the Russians as they're waging
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: war with Ukraine. There's the absurdity of doing this while
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: we're threatening Greenland, which is why the French said no.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I was told by someone the UK said no.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: So I just don't know what they're doing here. It's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: like a one pager to replace the UN. Trump calls
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: it the greatest board ever. Greatest board ever. You're going
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: to score an invite. surfboard, paddleboard.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the kind of liabilities are for
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: being on that kind of a board. What are the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: fiduciary responsibilities?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: How often does it meet? It's interesting to see what-
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: At least once a year. At least once a year.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: At least once a year.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I did see that some of the European leaders, again,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: this is like this sort of the Greenland stance as well.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: They're like, well, this is obviously fucking crazy, but we
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: don't want to piss them off more. So like, maybe
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: do you have to say yes to the board? Piss
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: them off. Jesus Christ. When are these people going to
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: stand up and do something? Collective action, guys. Look at
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Jerome Powell's video. Just do that.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Why aren't more people being inspired by Federal Reserve Chair
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Jerome Powell?
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: You know what? The heroes come in the oddest forms
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: these days.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: So if you can't afford Trump's billion-dollar Board of Peace fee,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: don't worry, you can still buy a pardon for a
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: few million bucks. Last week, Trump pardoned a Venezuelan banker
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: charged with felony bribery after his daughter donated $ 2. 5 million
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: to Trump's super PAC. He pardoned another convicted fraudster for
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the second time after Trump commuted her sentence in 2021.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: She committed fraud again. Guess she learned her lesson. She
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: was convicted again in 2024.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: She did learn her lesson. I can get away with
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: fraud and it's fine.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And then Trump just pardoned her again. And then because
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: the president cares so much about drug trafficking, he commuted
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: the sentence of a guy who was convicted of dealing meth,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: just happened to be the son of a Trump loving
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Republican congressman. So that's why that happened. I feel like
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: those drug boats from Venezuela might have a better chance
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: if they just carry a bunch of cash with them,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: let all the drones in the sky know, like, we
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: have money for you, Mr. Trump. Take this.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I know the name Mark Rich because it was
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: a defining scandal 25 years ago. It was 25 years later.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: We know the name Mark Rich. Any one of these
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: pardons is certainly these sort of, I donate your super PAC,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: then get a pardon, then get another, a commutation, then
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: another pardon. I mean, these are on the level of
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: not more, I mean, more clearly acquitted Pro quo, we'll forget.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: These will move on in a couple of days. That's
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: how far we've gone. And we focus on the Trump
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: of it. What is making this possible? Senate Republicans are
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: making this possible. It is not surprising, I guess, at
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: this point that they really will look past virtually everything.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: But taken in totality, they are responsible. They are the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: ones that are responsible for this because there is never
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: going to be hearing about this. There's never going to
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: be an investigation of this. The Department of Justice is
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: fully and completely captured. It does not investigate the administration.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: It only investigates the administration's adversaries. So there's no hope there.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Trump is being enabled by these people. And the pardon power, which,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: you know, it's sort of like you get the responsibilities
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: you can handle. And we have now shown that this
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: country cannot handle a pardon power. We've got to knock
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that thing off the next time we can start talking
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: about a constitutional amendment.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: You know what that reminded me of, too, is— Have
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: you seen these comments from Tom Tillis over the last week?
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: So he's like, this Greenland thing is crazy. What is
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: he doing? But he's still, this guy is retiring. He's
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: safe now. He doesn't owe Trump anything. And he's out
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: there like, you know, I don't think Trump wants to
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: do this Greenland thing. I think it's his advisors and
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: those advisors, whoever's advising him on Greenland is going to
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: sully his legacy. So dumb. It's just not what's happening.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: So clearly not the case. This is like no one.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: No one wants to look into this. No one wants
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: to say they just don't fucking care. Yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: His advisor is like a sleep paralysis, demon Roy cone.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: How are you going to, how are you going to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: get through to that guy? The ghost, the ghost of
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: an eighties monster who visits him in the night.
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I would add to your list, the Supreme court who
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: basically give him just absolute immunity and the power to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: do these pardons. I was listening to a, um, an
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: interview with Trump's former pardon attorney. It was like kind
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of the first person fired for questioning this process. because
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: she thought maybe it was a bad idea to give
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Mel Gibson his gun license back because he's like a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: serial domestic abuser and they tend to shoot people. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that was a canary in the coal mine. But yeah,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the examples you read are just like so far beyond
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the pale. It's hard to know what to do with them.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: It's pure bribery.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: There's all these Trump connected officials that have started a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: business around this. Like they're getting fees of like up
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to a million dollars just to buy pardons. And just
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: on the specific drug specific pardons, we've talked about Juan
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras. who got sentenced
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to 45 years for conspiring to traffic 400 tons of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: cocaine to the U.S. Then there was Ross Ulbricht, who
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: founded the Silk Road, which is that online marketplace that
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: prosecutors say facilitated roughly $ 1 billion in drug sales.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: He got a pardon. He was also accused of hiring
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: a hitman to kill five different people. Five.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: And there's just so many examples. Like there's the crypto
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: CEOs who paid bribes for pardons. But most people will
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: just never hear about it. There's never going to be
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a hearing on Capitol Hill about it.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is the.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: The real, the people who are really at fault here
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: are the founders because in fairness to the court, the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: constitution is pretty clear that the pardon power is basically
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: just unlimited.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's a botch for sure.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: It's a botch. It's a botch. And if, if we
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: ever had the ability to, um, sort of pass another
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: constitutional amendment, that would be right for that though.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You know, well, I would say reform is a good
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: issue for somebody, but.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: It has to be an amendment stuff in.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Defense of the framers. I would say that there were
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a few guardrails that they probably would have thought would
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: have kicked in before we got here.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Impeachment was supposed to be the punishment for abusing the
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: pardon power, just like it's the punishment for all the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: things that Trump has done.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And if Merrick Garland had been given a prescription for
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Vyvanse in 2021, maybe things could have moved a little
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: faster and this guy could have been in fucking jail
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: by now. So there's a lot of things that happened.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: A lot of things had to go wrong, cascade of failures,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: that he could abuse the pardon power in this way.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell. It's Mitch McConnell. Had the chance after January 6th.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Could have done it. Didn't do it. Mitch's fault.
• 28:52
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  Speaker 3: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the other place Trump is threatening with
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: military action, Minneapolis. Multiple outlets reported over the weekend that
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: the Pentagon had ordered about 1,500 active-duty U.S. Army paratroopers
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: stationed in Alaska to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: in the event that Trump invokes the Insurrection Act. The
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: Department of Defense also alerted around 200 Texas National Guard
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: troops about possible deployment to Minnesota. Even though Governor Tim
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Walz has already mobilized the state's National Guard, over 3,000
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: armed federal agents from ICE and other agencies are still
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: terrorizing Minneapolis. They are arresting U.S. citizens and legal residents
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: based on their accents or skin color or just cases
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: of mistaken identity. They're assaulting unarmed peaceful residents. some who
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: are protesting, others who are just in the wrong place
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: at the wrong time. This is all despite a court
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: ruling from a federal judge on Friday that prohibits ICE
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: from using tear gas and other crowd dispersal tools against, quote,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: peaceful and unobstructive protesters and says they can't detain or
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: arrest protesters who merely follow ICE at a safe distance.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Governor Walz and Minneapolis's mayor, Jacob Fry, have urged ICE
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: to leave and asked protesters to remain peaceful. And for that,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: the Trump administration has also launched a criminal investigation into
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: both men for simply speaking. Kristi Noem, our wretched excuse
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: for Homeland Security Secretary, was grilled on all of this
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: by Margaret Brennan on CBS this weekend. Here's all the
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: lies she told.
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: In Minneapolis, this family with six children, with one as
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: young as six months old, got kind of caught in
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: the incident as they were driving to basketball practice. ICE
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: released a canister of tear gas, and the mother described
• 33:08
  Speaker 7: giving her infant CPR. We're showing that video there.
• 33:13
  Speaker 8: The family was caught up in that situation because of
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: violent protesters that were impeding law enforcement operations. Are your
• 33:20
  Speaker 8: agents going to comply with the federal order on Friday
• 33:25
  Speaker 8: to not use chemical agents? That federal order was a
• 33:31
  Speaker 8: little ridiculous because that federal judge came down and told
• 33:35
  Speaker 8: us we couldn't do what we already aren't doing. We
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: just saw a video of chemical agents being used. We
• 33:43
  Speaker 8: only use those chemical agents when there's violence happening.
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: What's the breakdown of the percentage of those who you
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: have in custody who have actually committed a criminal offense
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: versus just the civil infraction?
• 33:55
  Speaker 8: Every single individual has committed a crime, but 70% of
• 33:58
  Speaker 8: them have committed or have charges against them on violent crimes.
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: It's not 70%.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
• 34:08
  Speaker 8: It absolutely is murder.
• 34:09
  Speaker 7: 70% of everyone you have detained has.
• 34:10
  Speaker 8: You guys keep changing your percentage. You pick and choose
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: what numbers you think work.
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: OK, well, our reporting is that 47 percent, based on
• 34:19
  Speaker 7: your agency's own numbers, 47 percent have criminal convictions against them.
• 34:23
  Speaker 8: But let's talk about the other numbers again. Absolutely. We'll
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: get you the correct numbers so you can raise them
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: in the future.
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: Well, that's from your agency.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Just they all lie. The whole administration lies. Department of
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Homeland Security lies. They don't even try to come up
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: with good lies anymore or even believable lies or anything
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: like that. They just just casually say whatever comes to mind.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: One thing also I just is whatever the statistics, there's
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that's not being measured right now.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: That's they're grabbing people and not technically arresting them and
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: then letting them go. They're keeping them for hours, maybe longer.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: We don't really know. And we don't, are those things
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: being documented? Are they being written down anywhere? They're not
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: technically arrest because these are people that can't be arrested.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: They haven't committed any crimes, but they're being harassed and
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: grabbed and intimidated and then thrown out of a car
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a few hours later. Is that in their statistics for
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: who they're picking up or no, I assume not because
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know that anyone's writing it down and the
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: people doing the grabbing or wearing masks and accountable to
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: no one.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just total impunity. I mean, she will lie
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: about anything. She will deny reality. She will blame anyone
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: but Trump. They don't care if a mom gets shot
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: in the face three times. They don't care if a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: baby gets tear gassed. Kristi Noem doesn't care about disgracing
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: herself and humiliating herself on national television. It's like audience
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of one shit. And there's good stats on this.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, she's just wrong and lying.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: MSNOW had a story where they said, of those arrested
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: by ICE and held in ICE detention, the majority have
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: no criminal convictions. More have no criminal convictions at all
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: than have convictions or pending charges. 92% of increases in
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: ICE arrests are people with no criminal history. And, you know,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the budget for ICE went from $ 10 billion to $ 30 billion.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: We're just wasting so much money on this.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: I was so angry about this over the weekend. I
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: sort of went deep on the story of the family
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: that was driving back from the basketball game. Because you're like, okay, well,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: how did this happen? They're driving back from the basketball game.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: They run into a bunch of ICE agents and they're
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: blocking their path. they immediately start screaming profanities at them.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: They've got an 11-year-old, 7-year-old, 4-year-old twins, 2-year-old, and the
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: 6-month-old baby in a van, and the two parents. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: they start screaming at them. They're like, get out of here,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: get out of here. They're like, well, get out of
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: our way. We'll get out of here. And they're worried
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: because the parents later said they're worried about Renee Good,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: what happened to her. So they're freaking out. And then
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: they feel an explosion under the car. The car lifts
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: up off the ground. Airbags release. The doors all lock.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: So now they're trapped in the car, and the car's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: filling up with gas, and all the kids... are getting
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: tear gassed. Neighbors run out of the houses. They pull
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the kids out of the car, of the van. And
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: the last one they pull out of the van is
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: the infant who's not breathing and not conscious. And the
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: mother starts doing CPR on the baby, but like can't
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: really breathe herself. And so she was like having trouble. Finally,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: she begs the ice agents to let, ice agents are
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: standing around, don't do anything. Begging the ice agents to
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: let the EMTs through, they won't. Finally, a Minneapolis police
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: officer gets through the ICE agents, gets the baby, brings
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: them to the hospital, and then the baby starts breathing again.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: And this family is like completely traumatized. The first tweet
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: from the Department of Homeland Security is, these parents are
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: violent agitators who should not have brought their children to
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: a protest. Then they delete it because- They're liars. Tricia
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: McLaughlin's a fucking liar. Disgusting. She's the worst. The worst.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: And so then they start, now their new line is, well,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: it's the protesters' fault. Because since there were protesters nearby,
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: the protesters forced the ICE agents to explode a canister
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: under a car that they knew was carrying six children
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: because they had been talking to the people. This would
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: turn me into John Wick. I mean, that is like
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: a radicalizing thing. But this is what it's like. Is
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: there no apology coming to this? Like no apology. No,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: like we will try to do better. No, nothing like
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Kristi Noem just stands there, sits there, looks at Margaret
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Brennan and has like just no emotion about it whatsoever.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Like no fucking empathy for this family. She's a grandmother.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: She's a mother.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: The the how did that first post go up?
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: How does the first post go?
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Did they just make it up? Did they just make
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: it up? Because Tricia just lies.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: She has no information.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: She lies all the time.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: And then they did feel compelled to delete it, right?
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Which is something of a capitulation that they've not done
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in a lot of other cases.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So it must be- It's probably why they don't do it. Right.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it was so obvious. There was some reason about
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: this case that was so obvious that they didn't feel
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: like they could slime this family. But the fact that
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: their first index was supposed to just complete falsehoods. And
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the fact that here, they're at least acknowledging, they're doing
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: the courtesy of this family of not blaming them for
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: their own for ICE attacking them, but they are just
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: blaming the random protesters.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: If you read the ruling, the ruling is wild too
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: from the federal judge because there's all these instances. Everyone
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: should go read the ruling. There's also just a New
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: York Times story about it if you don't want to
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: read the whole ruling. But like there's, they go through
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: and they have what DHS has claimed happened and then
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: they have what videos, evidence, witnesses actually show and what
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: the judge ruled on. Like one guy that they tackled
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: to the ground and locked up and shackled, for an
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: American citizen, they were like, oh, he was leading a protest.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: And then the videos show that he was actually pushing
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: protesters away from the ICE agents and holding up a
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: hand for everyone to get back. It's just like lie
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: after lie after lie after lie.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And it's in that ruling too where the judge found...
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that these officers are deploying tear gas and kind of
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: turning on these protesters, not because of any inciting incidents
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: for the protesters, but they just hit their limit and
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: get a bit annoyed. And they just sort of lash out.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: And the Wall Street Journal reported that when they make
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: an arrest, and then they let the person go because
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: they're a citizen or because they got the wrong person,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: that arrest still counts towards their 3,000 arrest quota. And
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: so they are now incentivized to arrest people who they're
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: not even going to charge with anything because it helps
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: make Stephen Miller's quota. That's a good system. So that's
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: what's happening there. It does seem like Trump is just
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: itching to invoke the Insurrection Act, though it's unclear what
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: the paratroopers from the 11th Airborne Division will do in
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Minneapolis that the Guard couldn't, other than freak everyone the
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: fuck out?
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I was surprised to see the paratroopers.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: You can just take the bus.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Is that just the unit, or are they actually planning
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: to have, send these guys out of a plane into Minneapolis?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I can see Trump liking the drama of that. I
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: do think it would be a pretty powerful message to
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: why this is terrible. I also don't want it to happen,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: so a little bit of attention there.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's probably just the unit, but yeah. They're
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: probably highly trained is probably just the unit. I think
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: of those people too. These guys are like men and
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: women are like in Alaska waiting for like something real
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: to happen. It's like, oh, you might have to go
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to Minnesota by the way to potentially fight like your
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: fellow citizens.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: And they're like, oh, God damn it. We're in Alaska.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Why the one of the fucking coldest ones? Can't they
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: do a fucking lawless crackdown in Miami or something? I
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: want to go to the LA Insurrection Act. I don't
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: want to go to the fucking Minneapolis one. That sucks.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: What do you guys think about the criminal investigation into
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Walz and Fry? It seems like complete fucking bullshit that
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: would get laughed out of court, but it's still like crazy.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Todd Planch, the Deputy Attorney General, posted earlier, like I
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: think on Wednesday or Thursday, Minnesota insurrection is a direct
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: result of a failed governor and a terrible mayor encouraging
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: violence against law enforcement. It's disgusting. Walz and Fry, I'm
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: focused on stopping you from your terrorism by whatever means necessary.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: This is not a threat. It's a promise, which is,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I know we're now inured to it. That's a shocking
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: thing to hear from the Department of Justice. The deputy
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: attorney general is that's not a threat. It's a promise.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: You're terrorists. That is shocking. But of course, it's serious.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Of course, it's serious.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a big deal for them personally, too.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's obviously designed to threaten them. It's obviously
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: like ridiculous, but they're trying to intimidate them. And we've
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: seen DOJ do this before. I mean, LaMonica McIver, member
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: of Congress, is being prosecuted for trying to go to
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: an ICE facility in her own home state.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: And the FBI is using.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Its records to go after Trump's enemies from impeachment or
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the January 6th, et cetera. So it's just a continuation
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of that process. And, you know, again, the hypocrisy makes
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: you want to tear your hair out, right? Like Trump
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: claims that this, you know, the governor and the mayor
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of the states, their comments, their words are criminal interference
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: in law enforcement. But sicking a mob on the Capitol
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: on January 6th is just, you know, giving a speech.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Like it makes you want to lose your mind. But
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: that's part of the plan, I guess. Also, the two
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: of them said, I should get out. They encourage people
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: to film things that they're seeing, which is entirely legal,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: no matter what they say. You can go film ICE
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: anywhere you want. It is not impeding a fucking investigation.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: If you are staying away from them and not causing
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: them trouble and staying back, you can film them anywhere
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you want. And then they've called for peace. They've called
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: for peaceful protests over and over again. So it's fucking
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: protected speech. What are you talking about? It's crazy.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: When I see Nome and I see Pam Bondi, and
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: these were, in some sense, in the previous era, they
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: were right-wing and whatever, but they were ostensibly normal politicians.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: But there is Pam Bondi presiding over the complete and
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: total political takeover of the Department of Justice in a
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: way that has just not been the case ever. And
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: doing it so kind of brazenly, there's not even a
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: kind of like, tilt towards what it should look like
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: or claiming it's independent. They are just going after their enemies.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: But that Wall Street Journal story from last week tells
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: you why, because Trump's going around calling Pam Bondi weak
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: and ineffective. And you hear the complaints from the far right,
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, she's too much of a lawyer.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: She did too much buy the book stuff. She's not
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: breaking the law. And so she's faced with that, right?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: She doesn't want to get fired. Because she doesn't want
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: to get excommunicated from MAGA World because also she could
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: get– it's not like she just loses her professional career,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: but who knows if Trump comes after her, right? So
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: it's like you don't want to piss Trump off. You
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: want to make sure you get your pardon when he
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: leaves so you're not prosecuted.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: So the more that– like every incentive that all of
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: these people have is to do literally anything Stephen Miller
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: and Donald Trump tell them to do. Right, but I–
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: Because it's the only way you can protect yourself at
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: some point. Not like excusing them, but like that is
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: the whole system. That is the incentive structure. It's not
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: to be like, I'm going to stand up and do
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: the right thing. Right.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: In a godless world.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: But like, I really like... The liberals are the godless.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: I thought we were the ones that didn't believe. Aren't
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: you guys all keeping a– what about the ledger? I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: thought you had the ledger. Is there no ledger? Are
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: you not worried at all? None of these people seem
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: worried about the book.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: No.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: The big book.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Well, they are worried about protesters interrupting it. a church,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: which is what they're all up in arms about today.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Did John Lemons turn in the barrel?
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Did you read the story about there was a bunch
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of federal prosecutors at the White House for like some
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: photo op.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: And Trump's like, oh yeah, bring it in.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: He just berates them all for not going after his
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: enemies fast enough. Like Tulsi Gabbard's a new example, right?
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Like she dares to say what the intelligence says about
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: the Iran strikes. Trump cuts her legs out from under her.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Fast forward six months, she's putting out tweets of herself
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: doing yoga on the fucking beach the day before the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Venezuela operation, just like iced out everything.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: A lot of big talk that she was going to
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: get Barack Obama, right? Barack Obama was supposed to show
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: up in handcuffs and that never happened.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: And now she's quiet quitting.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: One story that drew a lot of attention over the
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: weekend was about Jake Lang, a Nazi saluting influencer and
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: pardoned January Sixer, who tried to lead an Anti-Somali pro-ICE
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: rally in Minneapolis on Saturday, great timing, called the March
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Against Minnesota Fraud. Lange was chased off somewhat violently by
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: a much larger counter-demonstration. Lange and allies posted about his injuries,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: but it's hard to know what's exaggerated and what isn't.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: He was also there, by the way, he told everyone
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: he was going there to burn a Quran on the
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: steps of City Hall. That always sounds well.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: So what'd you guys make of that story?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: And this guy's a scary Nazi lunatic who's clearly more
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: emboldened than ever. And it makes you wonder about what
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: these freaks will do on January 6th, 2.0, whenever that comes.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: There's also a D.C.-based organization called CRU that put together
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: a report about all the pardoned January 6th people. Out
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: of the 1,600, 33 insurrectionists have been rearrested, charged, or
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: sentenced for other crimes. Those charges include aggravated kidnapping, child molestation,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: possession of child pornography, sexual assault. And a lot of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: these incidents are from before the pardons. But either way,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Trump pardoned all these dangerous criminals, put them back on
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the street, and now, shocker, they're doing dangerous, scary stuff.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Of course this is what's going to happen.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: It's like none of this is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy requires you
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: to have certain principles. Start with universal principles to begin with.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: It's just if people are on my side, good. Commit crimes.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: Do whatever you want. If you're not on my side,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: you're fucked. And if I have the power, I can
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: use it to protect my people and to screw your people.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Not hypocrisy. We lamented about the hypocrisy for a long time.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: But hypocrisy is, in some sense, kind of a... You're
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: at least acknowledging what the value should be. Once you
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: leave that behind, you're like, God, I miss hypocrisy. At
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: least we all had a pretend sense of morals. You
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: just didn't live up to them at all. You know,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: when I saw the videos of this guy kind of
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: cornered on a window ledge and actually a protester kind
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: of holding other people... And I actually thought about the
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: story you mentioned about the guy that got grabbed by
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: ICE because he was trying to stop things from escalating.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: And this is true of Trump. It's true of any
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: kind of chaotic and violent circumstance. It's true of what
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: happened with ICE shooting Rene Good, which is as situations
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: become more chaotic and more dangerous, as people like this
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: travel to Minnesota to rile people up, all of a
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: sudden what we're talking about as a country, what matters
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: is is no longer in our collective hands. It's in
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: the luck and happenstance and mindset of a few random
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: people and how they interact in a street confrontation. And
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: that is incredibly dangerous. If you look back at countries
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: that have gone down this road and to much darker
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: places from it, street confrontations, they accelerate because the next
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: time more of those guys show up and this time
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: they're armed and the other side feels like they've got
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: to show up and protect themselves. And by the way,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I have been like, so moved by the people in Minnesota,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: just showing up every fucking day and just being out
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: there and standing up for that community and being willing
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: to put their bodies there. That is fucking scary and
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: it is getting scarier and good that they're doing that
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: and good that they're doing, but they're angry and it's
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: tense and they're right to feel that. And then these
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: fucking Proud Boys show up and these fucking Nazis show up.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: It is a, even the most committed people in a
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: big group, these guys are, are, are kind of pushing
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: for that to turn into something ugly and more dangerous
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: and more violent. And they have been so peaceful and
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: trying to, so most of them, obviously, have been trying
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: to kind of just protect people and follow cars with
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: whistles and trying to do what they can to send
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the message that Minnesota isn't for that. And there are
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: gonna be people that try to test that. And unfortunately,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: it's not up to the vast majority of people in
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Minneapolis to collectively say they want peace. Because when you
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: end up in these small moments, all of a sudden,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Things can escalate because of a one or two or
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: three or five actors. And that is what makes it
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: so dangerous.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Which like law of averages, of course, there's going to
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: be those actors.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: And like, and, and the right-wing media influencer infrastructure is
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: just waiting for the content. Right. And they got, they
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: got some of it with Jake Lang, right. Um, and
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: then they got some of it with protesters who stupidly
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: walked into a church during, during, you know, people worshiping
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: in church. Right. And so this is literally of all
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: the bad news that's out there for the Trump administration.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: All they're talking about today is this church thing. And
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: now they're going to, you know, Don Lemon went into
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: the church with the protesters and started interviewing them. Also
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: interviewed the people who worked at the church, the church
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: officials and stuff like that. So he's just covering it.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: But now Don Lemon, they want to, they want to
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: arrest Don Lemon because of this. But this is it.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: This is all they can talk about because they want
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: to be like, see, the left is exactly what they
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: said we are. And it's like, no, fuck you. You
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: know what? When you do this kind of stuff, you
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: put this kind of pressure on people. You are, yes,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: you are going to have some people. I'm shocked that
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: there hasn't been more.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: And the other part of this, too, is this is where, like, oh,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you think, like, you know, Trump is turning us into,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: training us to be kind of a more callous and
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: cruel society. That's what he wants us to be. But
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: this is how violence begets violence. violence because when the
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: federal government is a group of mass fucking thugs, you're
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: standing on the street trying to protect people. And like,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: it is no longer about winning with reason and argument.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: It's you're just trying to literally put yourself in the
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: way because all that, because, because that the bodies matter
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: because the number of people starts to matter. It's all
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: part of what makes this so dangerous.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Did you see that the guy that actually saved Jake
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Lang from the crowd and pulled him away was black guy.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: And he was interviewed later and he was like, You know,
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: he's like, we can't, he's like, my thing is showing
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: love regardless of what someone else did to you. We can't,
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: we can't treat hate with hate, you know? And it's
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: just like, wow, that is a, like having that kind
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: of attitude, that is, that's tough. But you're like, not
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: everyone has that.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: No, and by the way, they're being trained not to, right?
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: That a peaceful movement right now is being peaceful despite
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: every message coming from the president and good for them
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: because that's what we need to do. That's what we
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: should do. That's how we'll prevail. That's how we can,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: because you will, you lose, In a fight to out-violence fascists,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: you will not win. But, man.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Even on the right, Trump is contradicting. Like, Erica Kirk
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: was like, I forgive Charlie's assassin.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I remember that. I don't. I hate my enemies.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: That's coming from the White House. So, Axios just reported
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: that Trump's team saw some bad private Republican polling on
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: his immigration policies and the ICE raids. And it's causing
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: some of his advisors to start quietly talking about, quote,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: recalibrating their approach. A Trump advisor told Axios he wants
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: mass deportations. What he doesn't want is what people are seeing.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: It looks bad. So he's expressed some discomfort in that.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: He also just posted something related to this. He said
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: there's too much media attention on ICE right now. What
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: do you guys think? Is there a possibility they back
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: off because of political pressure here that he doesn't like
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: how it looks?
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I can imagine a situation where he's half paying attention
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: because he is far more focused on foreign bribes and
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: going to the Miami football game tonight and all the
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: bullshit he does and wanting the Nobel Peace Prize. And
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: he kind of outsources policy to Stephen Miller. And then
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: he wakes up and he reads the paper or he
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: gets a call from a rich donor. And he's like, hey, Stephen,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I don't like this.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Reign it in.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I just I don't imagine him ever wanting to be
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: perceived as caving in any way in Minnesota or to
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the left because he is like a strong, weak, like
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: binary person.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Viewer of politics. I think that's probably true. What do
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: you think?
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I have no fucking idea. I really don't. You know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: all of this, the sort of, the enjoyment of the cruelty,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: the fact that Stephen Miller has the reins, the fact
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: that he can't capitulate, I agree with that. The fact
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: that his personal news environment is so fucked up, like
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: I don't really know what he's seeing. So I genuinely
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: don't know. I can see a world in which he
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: does not do, like, This winds down in some way
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't go on to the next city in
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: the same way. But do I think there's going to
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: be some great turn that we're all going to know about?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Like he could, there's a lot of things he could
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: do right now to turn down the temperature. He could
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: tell ICE that they all have to take their masks off.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. He could do a lot.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: All it tells me is that the people making noise
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: about this, sharing stories, filming this, sharing it, like it does,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: it does make a difference because they will, they are
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: going to feel the pressure and they are seeing it
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: in the polling. And, again, when you talk to people
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: in focus groups and you ask them, like, this is
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: the first thing that comes up now, right? Like, it
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: is people worry about the cost of stuff and they
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: are mad about the ice raids because they're seeing it everywhere.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: And it's covered on TikTok. It's covered on local news.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: It's covered everywhere people are getting their information these days. Now,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: you're right. Like, whether that changes the behavior, who fuck knows?
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: But I do think it's putting some pressure on them.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also, like, we were talking about it before,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: but like, man, these guys are, they signed up for
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: an idea of what this was going to be like.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: And now they're in these situations and all the anger
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: and the kind of, kind of, kind of, uh, kind
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: of twitchy reactions. There's just this look of like, this
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: has got to be a brutal thing to be dealing with.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: And like, they put what? 3000 people, in Minnesota, that's
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: a huge share of their force. And that is, these guys,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: there's all kinds of stories of morale being low. They
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: have to seek volunteers to do this kind of shit.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: They're gonna do a lot of bluster. But even with
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: this new giant ice, this is still America. It is
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: a big, rebellious, ungovernable place. And they just don't- They've
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: proven that now. Yeah, yeah. And what are they gonna
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: continue this? That we put these guys in the next
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  Speaker 3: they trust Dems more on healthcare by 15 points and
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  Speaker 3: by three points on looking out for the middle class
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  Speaker 3: and caring about people like you. Anything else that's jumped
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: out at you guys in the recent polling and is
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: anything changing how you feel about the midterms?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: My general response to these polls is that they're bad
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: for Trump and bad for Democrats. That was sort of
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: my takeaway from looking at them. And You can try
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: to blur your eyes and find the positive in them,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: but the fact that even facing all of this, there's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: like a four-point lead in the Wall Street Journal poll
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: for Democrats, and 58% of voters have an unfavorable view
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: of the party, which is roughly the same disapproval that
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Trump has, is pretty fucking bleak, because this poll has
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: people saying, by huge numbers, that Trump is going too
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: far on deporting illegal immigrants, on expanding the pardon power,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: on deploying ICE, on threatening action against far-right government. The
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: country is taking this in, and they don't like it.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: but they just don't see us as a viable alternative.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe we can overcome it, but if we win, it
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: will be despite what the Democratic Party is to the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: American people and not because of it.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my takeaway is similar. It's like this is a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: big splash of cold water on the face to every Democrat.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I think we're just going to romp the midterms, and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: maybe we will do well. Maybe it's just a turnout
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: thing and more Dems will turn on midterms. But border security,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Republicans have a 28-point advantage. The economy is six, like
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you said. Inflation, rising prices, they have a six-point advantage.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: This is very bad.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: And what it says is the Democratic Party's brand problem
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: is just as big as it ever was, even in
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the face of a wildly unpopular president doing insane things.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: And we need to figure out a way to fix
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: it and talk about who we are, what we stand for,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: sell people on a newer, different version of the Democratic
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Party than the one they currently hate, just a little
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: less than they hate Trump.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I have a slightly different view, which I don't necessarily
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: think is rosier, because I think that the image of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party is as bad as these polls suggest.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: I also think that a lot of it's coming from
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: A lot of those numbers are coming from Democrats who
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: don't like the party, who are going to vote for
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: Democrats no matter what. And many of them will crawl
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: over glass to vote for Democrats in the midterms, even
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: though they are not happy with the party. But I
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: think that the Trump numbers versus sort of the Republican
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: Party numbers, it's leading me to think that this, as
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: most midterms are, it really is going to be a referendum. Like,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: do you like what's happening with Trump or not? And
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: do you like the candidate, the Democratic? You might hate
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: the party in Washington. You might be really sick of them.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Do you like the candidate who is in the ads
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: in your House district or your Senate district that you're
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: seeing right now? And does that does that candidate effectively
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: tie the Republican to Donald Trump? And I know certainly
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: when we head to 27 and 28, it is like
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: we need a positive case. We need to talk about
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: what we're for. And we should Democratic candidates should absolutely
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: do that in the midterms. But I think at the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: end of the day, the choice that voters are going
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: to make are like, Trump, thumbs up, thumbs down. How
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: am I going to vote?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The other part of it, to your point, is
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: in previous eras, the president would give tacit permission to
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: his party candidates. Like, if you need to run against me,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: that's fine. You know, run against me a little bit.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: But not this guy.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: That's inconceivable. This guy and the last guy.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I do think part of this, right, like, look,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go back to a pretty empty well,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: but the like part of the Democratic brand problem is
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: you have, you know, Joe Biden is our candidate. He
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: is defined by wanting to defeat and remove Trump in
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: his first run and then incomprehensible in his second. Kamala
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: comes in and I do think is a cautionary tale
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: for what happens when you try to run without a worldview.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: And every question becomes a hard question. Right now, we're
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: having this sort of kind of, it's mostly like a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: super kind of, I think, highly engaged debate about whether
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: or not Democrats should be for abolishing ICE, but it
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: is something that the right wing is obviously picking up
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: on because they like this kind of dissension. And I
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: think there's reasons to say it is kind of unhelpful
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: to debating whether or not we should abolish ICE when
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: we would have to go on a world historic winning
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: streak for several years for that to be even on
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: the table. But if you think that debate is unhelpful,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's worth thinking about what is the quiet
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: around the question about whether or not to abolish ICE.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: And the quiet around the question is, What do Democrats
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: stand for on immigration? What should immigration enforcement look like?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: What kind of legal immigration order combined with a rigorous
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: but humane enforcement order are you in favor of? I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: have no fucking idea what Democrats believe, not even on
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: the technical policy, but on a philosophical matter, what the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: core democratic vision is for the future. And across virtually
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: every issue, that is just white space. And you're right,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: we may not need it. for the midterms. But when
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: people start talking about who the leaders of the future
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: of the party are going to be, that is the space.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: Well, and also, no time like the present to start
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: putting it out there.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: Of course.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Of course. We haven't had a chance yet to talk
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: about Mary Paltola entering the Senate race in Alaska, which
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: now gives Democrats a real, if quite narrow, path to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: the majority if she can pull out a win. And
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: we can also flip Maine, North Carolina, and either Ohio, Iowa,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: or Texas. Thoughts?
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I hope we do.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Iowa, it's got open Senate primary.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: There's like three or four contested house races, a really
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: strong governor candidate and Rob Sand.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: So there's a good shot there.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: You know, in Ohio, like, look, Ohio's tough, but Sherrod
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Brown gives us the best chance we've got in Ohio.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: I think in Texas we have a Democratic primary, but
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: you know, Cornyn is not the most popular, you know, Senator.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: So it's tough.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: It's tough.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: We should try.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: It depends. Like what you look at these polling and say, well,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: what has to happen for us to win all these races? Well,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: they all have to run really great campaigns and there
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: has to be a real wave and momentum. And if
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: you look at these polling, you can actually tell yourself
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: a story that we're heading towards that possibility. And you
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: can also say we're not heading, right? Like the polling
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: gives you both options. So I just don't think we know.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: So Matt Iglesias, who's been rather obsessed with like, hey,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: if we don't figure out a way to actually win
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: the Senate, nothing's going to matter because the Senate's always
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: going to like, everyone's like, oh, it's a tough Senate map,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: but it's always a tough Senate map. There are no
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: more easy Senate maps if you start looking down the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: road at 28 and the rest. And so he sort
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: of just looked at the congressional races, special elections from
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: 25 and the overperformance. So the average of the generic
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: ballot polling for all of these was plus four, which
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: is about where we're sitting right now. It was seven
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: in Tennessee, nine in Arizona, eight in Virginia, 11 and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: eight in those two Florida specials. Now, you know, you're
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: going to get a big, larger turnout in the midterms, right?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: So that makes it slightly harder, though. the turnout in
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: Tennessee in that race was like midterm level turnout. It
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: was actually the same as the midterm. So you get
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: that kind of turn. So it was a pretty, you know,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: overperformance by seven in a, in a place where both
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: parties spent a ton of money and there was like
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: midterm turnout. It's like a pretty good indicator. And then
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: when you look at the Senate races that we need
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: to win, so Harris loses Ohio by 5.7, Iowa by 6.7,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Alaska 6.8, Texas 6.9. So like it's right on the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: It's right there. Like it is possible. And if you
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: get the kind of overperformance that you had in 25
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: and some of these Senate races and you have good
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: candidates in these races, then it is possible. It is possible.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: And also like. Democrats need to make it possible. We
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: just can't.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: I would just say like the fact that it is
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: easier for us to imagine America as a permanent autocracy
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: than it is to imagine Democrats having a 60 seat
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: majority in the Senate tells you that there's something. 60?
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about? I'm talking about 51.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: But like to a majority that we had when we
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: were in politics, which we had a 60 seat majority
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: in the Senate. Not that long ago. Now it is
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: less conceivable than total destruction of democracy.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: It's like, guess what? Iowa, Ohio, Texas. You can't look
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: at those three states and be like, well, all of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: them are really tough. One of them has to be
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: not tough. And particularly Texas, if we're going to win
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: presidential races again in the Electoral College, you know, and
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: same thing with Alaska, right? Like we're close in that state.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: You might say that, you know, Democrats need to be
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: able to win the country, you know, and sort of,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: and in all various parts of it. That we currently
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: are not competing.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: That's why I'm kind of beating the Iowa drama. Obviously,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: Rob Sanders is a friend. I really like him.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: But also, like, there's so much bang for your buck there. Like,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Texas is so expensive. But in Iowa, there's governor's race.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: There's several House seats we could pick up. There's a,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you know, Senate seat. Like, we got to invest there early.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Iowa's like the short term. We have to do it.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Texas is the not even long term, medium term. We
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: have to do it. Also, she won, she lost Florida
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: by six points. And I know, like, I just went
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: through all of those margins. Kamala Harris lost Florida by
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: six points, and the fact that we just now don't
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: pay attention to it is probably not doable for the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: long term.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: And there's at least one more vote for a Democrat
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: if my dad wants to come to my wedding. So
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: something to think about.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: So we talked about 2026. One piece of 2028 news
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: we do want to touch on before we get to
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: Tommy's interview with Jason Zengerle. Josh Shapiro's got a new
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: book coming out this week, and the newsiest parts are
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: starting to leak. They include the news that Shapiro did
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: explore launching a presidential bid right after Joe Biden dropped out,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: but it was quickly shut down by his wife. I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: guess she was in a Canadian, she said, I'm in
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: a Canadian Walmart right now. I don't think we're ready.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: It's funny. Yeah, not a fair, not a bad point.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: There's also news that Trump cautioned him against running for president,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: given how dangerous the office is. This was after his
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: home was attacked in an anti-Semitic attack. He also has
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: an in-depth accounting of Kamala Harris's VP vetting process, which
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: Shapiro apparently found to be quite contentious. He writes that
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: the vetting team asked him at one point if he
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: had ever, quote, communicated with an undercover agent of Israel
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: or if he ever was himself an agent for Israel.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: That news comes after Harris wrote in 107 Days that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: Shapiro was presumptive about being selected as the vice presidential nominee,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: saying that he wanted to, quote, be in the room
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: for every decision. and asked if the Smithsonian would lend
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania art to display in the vice president's residence. Shapiro
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: has basically denied that account, calling it bullshit. No love
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: lost between these two, huh?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little surprising that they're airing it out
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: like this. Maybe it was unintentional, maybe reporters found the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: book and someone picked up on this so the rest
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: focused on it, but I don't think it makes anyone
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: look great here.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you like it? We want them to be more honest,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: so let rip, I guess.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when 107 Days first came out, Tim Alberta asked
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Josh Shapiro about it, seemingly in real time. And Josh
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Shapiro goes like, that's a blatant lie. And then he
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: curses about, oh, he's talking out of her ass. Bullshit,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: he's talking out of her ass or something to that effect.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: And then he kind of catches himself and he's like,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't have said it that way. And it's like, why, man?
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: Let it rip. If you think it's a blatant lie,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: say it's a blatant lie. If you think she's talking
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: out of her ass, say she's talking out of her ass.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: We need to know if Josh Shapiro's in Mossad or not.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: There's a tough campaign. She wanted Pete Buttigieg, but he's gay,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: but not because she doesn't think the country's ready for
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: a gay guy, but the country's not ready for a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: gay guy, but that's not what she thinks. So that's
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: why she doesn't choose Pete. Now she's got Josh Shapiro.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: He's the country ready for a Mossad agent.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he is in Mossad, right? We all know that
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: because he's in it. And so she's got to get
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: to the bottom of that. It's only 107 days. The
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: direct quote was, that's complete and utter bullshit. He told
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: Tim Alberta, this is Josh Shapiro. I can tell you
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: that her accounts are just blatant lies. So yeah, that
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: was a, it was a, it was an honest, immediate
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: reaction that was quite strong.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: What do we think about the vetting thing?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: So look, let me just say, I get how fraught
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: this question is, how it must've felt for Shapiro in
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the moment, how offensive it could feel after dealing with
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: like years of antisemitism, your house being attacked, et cetera.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I think this does come largely from a misunderstanding about
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the standard vetting process. Like the question, uh, are you
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: a double agent for the Israeli government? Have you ever
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: talked with an agent of the Israeli government? Sure, it
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: seems ridiculous, but that is kind of standard.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: Like the SF-86. We got asked all that.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: The standard vetting form for national security asks, quote, have
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: you ever been a member of an organization dedicated to
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: terrorism or advocated for force violence to overthrow the US government?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: The idea is not for you to admit it. This
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: isn't a few good men. It is to get you
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: on the record in case they find something later and
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: then can show that you lied. And we know now
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: that Tim Walls was asked a similar question about China
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: because Tim Walls had traveled to China extensively. Shapiro had
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: lived in Israel during high school. He once identified himself
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: as a volunteer for the IDF. And then after college,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: he spent six months working for the Israeli embassy in D.C.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: If I had done those things, I would have gotten
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: asked about them extensively on my security clearance and my
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: background check. And you better believe that the fucking vice
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: president United States. potentially is going to get asked about
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: it too.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: You get asked about everywhere you've traveled in the last decade,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: like for outside the United States in detail. And then
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: the FBI will come back at certain places that you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: travel and be like, what happened when you were there?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: You talked to when you were like this, this happens
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: when you're getting a security claim. Obviously this was a
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: political vetting more than anything else.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: And Gaza was a very hot button issue at the time.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: And it obviously erupted in the wrong way. And there
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: were political considerations, but it was just like, like he
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: just takes such umbrage at it. Like he says, It
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: nagged at me that their questions weren't really about substance,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: he wrote. Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: and my worldview.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: That stuck out to me, too. Isn't that substance? Isn't
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: that the whole point of the interview?
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a strange sentence, too. That is substance.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: That's the good stuff.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: I'm interested to see what context that's in in the book,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: because it was just in the Atlantic piece. But I
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: was like, that is a weird, I don't understand that.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: Of course it should be about your ideology, your approach,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: and your worldview. She's picking you for vice president.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: I thought it was strange when the person doing the
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: vetting of Shapiro kind of like, push some ham towards
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: him and then just said like what are you gonna
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: do with that ham you're gonna eat it do you
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: love this country or not eat the ham eat the
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: ham josh eat the fucking ham you massad agent no
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: of course you can't be kamala's running mate of course
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: not you won't you won't eat this ham uh i
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: love the fight i'm so into.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: It but i think this started in fairness with like
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris in 107 days taking a shot at Newsome
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: and then taking a shot at Shapiro. For no real reason.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: But you know what?
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: Good for her too.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: Honestly, more, more, more. No, totally fine. But like, that's
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: what happens. For sure.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: It's so great. But also, I do think, I will say,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: the fact that in 107 days, it's like basically like
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: has this, basically insinuates that he was like measuring the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: drapes and decorating it. I do, like Josh Shapiro being like,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: what the fuck is that? That's bullshit. I kind of like,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: It does sound like small talk being turned into something.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, okay, if I was going to move
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: into a naval observatory and I was making small talk
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: about it, I'd be like, I don't have that much stuff.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: What do you put in the thing? Do you get
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: it from a museum? Like, small talk. I mean, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: think you'd have to be a psychopath to be like, hey,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: in case she picks me after this interview that's maybe
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: the most important of my life, what do we think
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: about the art?
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: He also says in one of the articles, I was
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: surprised by how much she seemed to dislike the role
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: of vice president.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: And I was like, really?
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Have you spoken to a vice president before? Because they
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: all seem to feel this way. He also seemed offended
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: that Dana Remus, the person doing the vetting, sort of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: flagged how expensive the job can be, like the price
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: of entertaining. You have to pay for some of it yourself.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Clothes for the first lady, hair and makeup for the
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: first lady. She noted that they didn't have a lot
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: of money. That seems like actually a really good thing
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: to flag for someone before they get a job. It's like, hey,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: you're going to go into debt if you take this job.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: That is reasonable and relevant.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: I guess. The way he takes that in the book
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: is that basically, like, Now they feel like, oh, now
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: we're down the road with Josh Shapiro. We don't want
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: the political problem of not choosing him. So like, you
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: don't really want this job. You know, that's what he's,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: that's in the book.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not Dana Remus's job to relay that.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: That's so weird to kind of be doing budgeting for
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: him in the moment. I don't know. I found the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: whole thing strange.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: Aren't they all relieved that no one had to test
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: it out? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Weren't they friends before this? Didn't they have a pre-existing
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: relationship that makes all this so surprising?
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: They've known each other for 20 years. That was the
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: whole thing. And I think they both met when they
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: were in the Mossad. I love this. And I just
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: want to say, I hope more politicians do the real
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: beef airing out in the books. It is better. It
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: is more fun than the kind of bromides. And after
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: over tea, we talked about our children and realized that
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: We had a lot of the same values, but this
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't the right moment for us. Like, I am so
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: much happier with this. And even if this news cycle
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: is annoying.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: If only Pete and Amy had aired out their dirty
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: laundry before the primary in 2020.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you want to see violence in the streets of Minnesota?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: Let's get that one going. I'm excited. I'm excited about that.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: Enough.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: Is the kind of political version of our disagreements working
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: out for us as we debate whether or not we
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: can ever win in Ohio again?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, boy. One year, guys. It's been one year since
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: Trump has inaugurated. Here we are. One down, three to go.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: Getting booed at NBA games in London. It's happening right now.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: In a moment, we're going to jump to Tommy's interview
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: with Jason Zengerle about his new Crooked Media Reads book
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: about Tucker Carlson, another potential 2028 candidate. But before we
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: get there... We talked about that, actually, yeah. Oh, gosh,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: there you go. Some housekeeping before we get there. Just
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: a reminder for our friends at the pod and anyone
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: who wants even more Pod Save America... We just launched
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: a new weekly newsletter, Pod Save America Open Tabs, which
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: releases every Thursday morning. Open Tabs offers a behind-the-scenes look
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: into how we put Pod Save America together, what's coming
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: in the next episode, and the stories rattling around in
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: our heads before we get into the studio. Can I
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: just say, fantastic newsletter. It's really well done.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: Our editor, Pod Save America, Reid Cherlin, is writing it.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: Reid is the best. It's such a great product. Check
• 1:17:15
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• 1:17:18
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• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: And just by the way, if you really like Pod
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: Save America, if you want to support what Crooked Media
• 1:17:22
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• 1:17:27
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• 1:17:31
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• 1:17:44
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• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: We promise. Here's the thing. You guys have all seen
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: Nick Shirley, that YouTuber. He uncovered all of that. He
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: did the big investigation into the Somali fraud that basically
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: led to the deployment in Minnesota. We want to send
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: Elijah out to some of these places to uncover some fraud,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: some MAGA fraud.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: We're sending Lovett to the Mar-a-Lago daycare. That is the
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Trump White House. Yeah, dress me up as a little baby.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Water goo-goo-ga-ga-gate.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: Is that anything?
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: I liked it a lot.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: So, you know, subscribe. Cricket.com slash friends. Goo Goo Gaga Gate.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Jason Zengerle.
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• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Joining me now is the author of Crooked Media Reads'
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: newest book, Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, Jason Zangerle.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: Jason, great to see you. Welcome to the show. Thanks
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: for having me on. It's good to be here. It
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: is great to see you.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: We've known each other a long time, and this is
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: an incredible book, which I have read. And I highly,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: highly recommend everybody go pre-order a copy right now because
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Tucker is a fascinating character. And I think understanding his
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: arc really does tell you the story of the MAGA evolution,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: the way the world has changed, the way the media
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: has changed over the last couple of decades. So I just,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: I cannot recommend the book enough. So let's just, let's
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: just start at the top. So the book's about Tucker
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: Carlson and kind of like the arc of his career
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: across the establishment media world, his time at Fox, his
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: still very mysterious firing from Fox. And then there's this
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: modern iteration where he is this massive force in independent
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: media that but also like a confidant and advisor to
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in a lot of ways. So first question
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: is like, why did you decide to follow Tucker instead
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: of some of the other big names in conservative media, right?
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Like a Bannon or a Ben Shapiro. And then I
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: don't know, how do you think Tucker's story kind of
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: tracks that evolution in American politics that we've seen?
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: Well, so the original genesis for the book was I
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: was talking to my agent not too long after January
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: 6th in 2021. And We were talking about doing a
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: book about the coming Republican Civil War because Donald Trump
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: was clearly gone, right? He was never going to come
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: back from that.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: And we were talking about how 2024 was going to
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: play out, the various factions within the Republican Party who
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: was going to sort of triumph in that. And I
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: was explaining to my agent that I thought all the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: people who are going to try to inherit Trump supporters,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: the Ted Cruz's, Josh Hawley's, all those guys, no matter
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: how Many positions, like Trump-like positions, they staked out. They
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: were never going to get Trump's supporters, the MAGA base,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: because they weren't entertaining. They have no charisma. They're not
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: able to kind of hold their attention. I mean, say
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: what you will about Trump, but that is one of
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: his superpowers. He's a remarkably entertaining figure. And as just
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: kind of an aside, I said to Chris, the only
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: guy who can do that is Tucker Carlson. And we
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: both kind of paused and we're like, oh, wait a second.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: That's the book.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: And the more I thought about Tucker, the more I
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: just kind of recognized that his whole career is such
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: an incredible window on the incentive structure that exists in
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: conservative media and conservative politics because every step along the way,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: he's kind of tailored his own personality, tailored his own
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: stances to that incentive structure. And what you see him
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: doing Today, what he did at Fox, he's kind of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: responding to what the conservative base and conservative viewers want.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: And he has a really just well-developed kind of radar
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: for where the audience is. And he's had that his
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: entire career. I mean, sometimes it's failed him in certain instances,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: but I think for the last 10 years or so,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: it's been operating on kind of the highest level. And
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: he's just a really good vehicle to kind of tell
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: this much larger story about how we've gotten to this
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: place where we've gotten.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: So you said a thousand things there that I want
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: to follow up on. So I'll try to choose a few.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: And at the end, I want to ask you about
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: whether Tucker himself might run for office, but let's put
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: a pin in that one. So, you know, as you mentioned,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: like Tucker benefited, he's a great writer, right? He was
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: a great magazine reporter and he benefited from some very
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: correct early political predictions. For example, you write about how
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: he wrote this kind of scathing, iconic takedown of George W.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: Bush in 2001. that got at a lot of the.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Personality traits that would ultimately destroy the Bush presidency. And
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: then Tucker was also one of the first people at
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: Fox News who took Donald Trump seriously. How do you
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: think Tucker kind of was able to judge those two
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: correctly before others did? And then what was the impact,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: do you think, of that early symbiotic relationship with Trump
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: on Tucker's career?
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: Well, I think Tucker, when he was a magazine journalist especially,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: he had a really good bullshit detector. And he was
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: also like pretty courageous. Like he was not afraid to
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: kind of cross, you know, the important conservative figures, not
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: afraid to go against the conventional wisdom. With Trump in 2015, 2016,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: I think one thing that happened with Tucker after his
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: cable news career kind of flamed out, he developed a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: website called The Daily Caller. And his original vision for
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: The Daily Caller was a fairly like I don't want
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: to say sober, but very fact-based website. He talked about
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: how the New York Times was sort of a model
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: in some ways because they cared about facts.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't remember that really playing out quite like that,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: but that was the early pitch, wasn't it?
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: That was the early pitch and that was the first
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: staff that he hired. I think he realized very quickly
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: that there was not an audience for that. But in
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: recognizing what the audience was, he was able to see
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: that conservative viewers really wanted you know, kind of like
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: nativist content, you know, kind of racist content, you know,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 4: focus on like black on white crime and things like that.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 4: And he saw the gap that existed between the conservative
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: base and the Republican establishment, I think a lot earlier than,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: you know, most conservative pundits did just because he had
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: the traffic metrics in front of him and he saw
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: what readers wanted. So when Trump came along in 2016,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, people don't remember this now, but
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 4: like Fox was not a big booster of Trump in 2016.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, they tried to torpedo him in that first debate.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: And it created a problem for Fox that they needed
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: just to produce like a compelling television segment, they needed
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: someone who was camera ready to go on the shows
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: and at least not bash Trump, at least sort of be,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: you know, open to the possibility of Trump. And Tucker,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: who was kind of on the third or fourth rung
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: of the Fox pundit roster at that point, he was
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 4: willing to do that, I think, because he did believe it.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: He started getting a lot more airtime and that was
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: kind of how his star rose. I mean, he was
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 4: not like a huge Trump supporter necessarily. He, I think,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: had a lot of personal qualms about Trump, but he
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: did see kind of how the issues that Trump was
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: banging on might resonate and that gave him his break
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: and that was sort of his ticket out of you know, the,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: the Fox kind of Netherland, another world of, you know, the,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: the weekend morning show.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess God forbid that only described, yeah,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you're only secretary of defense these days.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: So for a while, for a while, Tucker was like
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: the greatest success, you know, getting from the morning. Now Hagseth,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: I guess has surpassed him, but for a time he
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: was the biggest success.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I think, well, Tucker was sober by then. So,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe that, that seriousness of purpose, purpose hurt
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: him from getting a job in the Trump administration. Um,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about like two moments or
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: sort of periods in Tucker's career and maybe how they impacted, uh,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: his career arc, and then, you know, Tucker personally. The
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: first is this now iconic moment in 2004 on the
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: CNN show Crossfire. So for the kids out there who
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: don't remember Crossfire, like congrats. The gist is it was
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: a cable news debate show that was essentially murdered on
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: air by Jon Stewart, who told the hosts that they
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: were hurting America. And the show was canceled like not
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: long after. The second moment is, fast forward, July 2020.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: So Tucker Carlson is one of the hosts of Crossfire.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: I should have said that.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: The second moment is July of 2020 when Tucker Carlson Tonight,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Tucker's then Fox News show, becomes the highest rated TV
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: program in U.S. cable news history. How do we get
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: from here to there? It's extraordinary when you think about it.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there are a lot of steps along the way
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: as I try to detail in the book. I do think, though,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 4: you can't consider what Tucker is today without Thinking about
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: that John Stewart appearance because, I mean, he killed– Stewart
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: killed Crossfire and he really killed Tucker's career. I mean,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: Tucker was let go from CNN not long after that.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: He washes up at MSNBC. you know, people don't take
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: him seriously. Stuart made fun of him for wearing his
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: bow tie. You know, I think, what'd he say? Like
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: you're 35 years old and you were a bow tie.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: He called him a dick or something. He called him
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: a dick. Yeah.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: And in front of a studio audience that is cheering
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 4: Stuart on, I mean, it was, it was, you know,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: and then Paul Begala, who was the host on the left,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: like he's not saying anything, you know, he just, I
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: think he kind of like sort of, you know, he's
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: like Homer Simpson kind of fading into the bushes and
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: like Tucker's the one sort of, you know, arguing with
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: Stuart and he just, he just got destroyed. Um, And,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: you know, for Tucker, I mean, he had been really
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: riding high before that. And, you know, he's the youngest
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: host in CNN history. Crossfire, I mean, people might not
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: know about it today, but like at the time, it
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: was the preeminent political show. And being in the chair
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: on the right, I mean, that was a very prestigious thing.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: And it really, you know, it destroyed Tucker's career. And
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: I think it sort of bred in him a lot
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: of resentment because he was very much a part of,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: you know, the the DC kind of political and media elite.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: And when he was, you know, ether that way, like
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: they didn't really come to his defense. I mean, you know,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: the way Paul Bacala behaved on that set was the
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: way a lot of people in that world behaved and
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: they didn't, they didn't rally to Tucker's defense. And I
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: think he was hurt by that. I think he was
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: genuinely hurt. I think he started to question maybe who
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: some of his friends were. And, I think that kind
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: of built in him a resentment and, you know, over
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: time that resentment grew. And especially as, you know, he
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: felt that like his, his talents were not being recognized
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: or rewarded by, you know, network executives and the various gatekeepers.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: I think that that made him like in a weird way,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: kind of like identify with and be receptive towards kind
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: of the resentments that fueled so much of, you know,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: Trumpism and populism. And I think, you know, he, like he,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, he does not sort of portray himself as
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: like an everyman or anything. And I think that's actually
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: kind of what makes him so effective. I mean, he,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: you know, he, in some ways, like he's kind of
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: like upped his sort of waspiness, you know, he's always
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: wearing the reptile. He's got his Rolex, you know, he
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: sips Perrier, you know, he drinks for like from a
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 4: visible Perrier bottle. Like he's playing the role of a
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: class traitor. And I think that in some ways like
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: makes him more kind of, uh, I don't know, credible
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 4: in the eyes of, you know, his populist fans. It's
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 4: not actually that different from what Trump does. You know,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: he can sort of say like, I've been in these rooms,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: I've seen the way elites act. And let me tell you,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 4: they're just as bad as you think. And I think that,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: you know, he's comfortable kind of attacking these elites because
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: I think in a way he personally feels that he
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 4: was betrayed by them because they didn't help him at
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: his lowest moment. And I think, you know, as I
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: try to show in the book, like that's not really
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: totally true. I mean, you know, he did get a
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: job at MSNBC, you know, he was when he launched
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 4: the Daily Caller, like, you know, the people who turned
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: out to support that, you know, you sort of read
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 4: the list of the people who were at the launch
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: party and where the launch party was held. You know,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: it's like, it's, you know, it's Jake Tapper, it's Juliana Glover,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 4: it's Mike Allen, it's all these kind of like, you know,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 4: creatures of, you know, what he now, you know, refers
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 4: to as legacy media and disparages, but they were all
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 4: like rooting for Tucker. And, you know, I guess he's
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 4: kind of sort of missed that a little bit or
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: he kind of ignores it, but But that 2004 moment
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: I think definitely kind of fed this resentment that led him,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 4: in addition to being able to kind of sort of
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: intuit where the conservative base was, it made it easier
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: for him to become a populist and stick the knife
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: in these people who had once been his friends and
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: his allies and his cheerleaders.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to a degree.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: To a level of success that is almost unimaginable. I mean,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: like 4 million people a night.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: Were watching that show or something like that. I mean,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: it's unbelievable numbers in cable.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, and like, to his credit, it
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: was so different from the other Fox shows. I mean,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: you know, if you tuned into Hannity or you tuned
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 4: into Laura Ingraham, like you knew what you were going
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: to get, right? Like Tucker was like pretty unpredictable. And
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: it wasn't as Trump focused and Trump obsessed as those
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: shows were. I mean, he was... He obviously was supporting
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 4: the administration for the most part. But he tried to
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: maintain a little bit of personal, I think, distance from
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: Trump during that first term. And I think that made
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: the show in some ways more interesting. I mean, not
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: just to regular viewers, but I think to conservative intellectuals
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 4: like that show. You could actually read a Ross Douthat
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: column about a Tucker Carlson monologue. You would never get
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: that about a Sean Hannity monologue or a Laura Ingraham monologue.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 4: It was operating at a higher level.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it certainly seemed like Tucker, I mean, he
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: was personally investing maybe more of his time and energy
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: into the writing, whereas some of those other hosts, it
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: just feels like they're mailing it in, you know, you're
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: 20 of some EP writing the same garbage script.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he cared about the writing in a way that,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: you know, I think very few others did.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: And, you know, and that was new.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think for a lot of his cable
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: news career, after he left magazine journalism, I don't think
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: he sort of spent a lot of time writing when
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 4: he was at CNN and MSNBC. But he really treated
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 4: that monologue like he would have a magazine piece earlier.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: Even the way he talked about it, he would say,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 4: I'm filing it to his producers. It was just a
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 4: different mentality.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: I think that's a mentality that served others well. I
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: think Rachel Maddow is very similar in her preparation for
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: the show back in the day, which was she would,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: I think, go into the office and spend hours and
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: hours and hours hammering out.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: Her opening monologue.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: Often they were 20 minutes long, so it would take
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of time, but she was personally invested in that.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 4: And I think, I mean, that's not a coincidence. I mean,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: I think, I think like one, I mean, one of
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 4: the things I like doing with this book was sort
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 4: of introducing people to Tucker who maybe only know him since,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 4: you know, he had his Fox primetime show kind of the,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: the things about him that they probably were not aware of.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 4: You know, one of them is like, you know, he,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 4: he kind of discovered Rachel Maddow. Like he was the
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 4: one who brought her to MSNBC. When he was on MSNBC,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 4: like he needed an intelligent debate partner. And he wanted,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 4: Maddow was, I think, an Air America host at that point.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: He saw her audition tape. He wanted her to come on.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 4: The execs did not want her. They thought, you know,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: she was not TV ready. And he really fought for
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: her and, you know, and brought her on the show. And,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 4: you know, as I understand it, like they're still, they're
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 4: still friendly.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: So another mystery about Tucker is like no one seems
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: to know why he was fired from Fox News.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of theories.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: There's some people thinking, you know, kind of made the
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: wrong powerful person at the network, crossed them, you know,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: pissed them off. I talked with someone recently who is
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: personally close with Tucker who insists that the firing was
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: one of the terms of the lawsuit Fox News settled
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: with Dominion Voting Systems.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the Tucker theory.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: OK, so what's your so that's coming from Tucker, you think?
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: What's your theory?
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I wish I could say
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: I did. I wish I could say this book kind
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 4: of tells all and reveals it. But honestly, like none
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 4: of the explanations I've ever heard under the theories like
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 4: are fully true. sort of satisfying and add up. I mean,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 4: I do think it was probably a combination. I mean,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: Tucker's theory is that, you know, Dominion wanted Rupert Murdoch
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: to get to a billion dollars. That was like their
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: line and Murdoch would not cross that. He would not
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: get to a billion. So he basically counterproposed 700 million
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 4: and Tucker Carlson scalp.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: And they took that, but I don't, but you know,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 4: there's no proof of that. And Tucker has, you know,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of theories that are probably not, uh,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 4: not necessarily grounded in reality. I mean, there's a theory that, um,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 4: Murdoch himself became uncomfortable just with the amount of power
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: that Tucker had amassed inside the network and just in
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: his world. I mean, there's this famous story that Tucker
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 4: went out to Murdoch's estate in California not too long
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: before he was fired to have, I guess, lunch or
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: some meal with Rupert Murdoch and his then-fiancee. And his
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: then-fiance was a huge Tucker Carlson fan, so much that
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 4: she thought he was a messenger for God and told
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 4: this to Tucker during the meal. And Murdoch was so
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: kind of weirded out by this that the next day
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 4: he broke off the engagement and then not much longer
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 4: Tucker was fired. So that one seems not implausible to me.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 3: That's a great theory. I love that. Okay.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: So nearly every profile, book, article, conversation you have in
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: DC about Tucker Carlson seems to struggle with a fundamental tension,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: which is that people who've known him personally, who've interacted
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: with him personally, compared to like, in that experience, compared
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to what he says on his show, which is like
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: open racism, anti-Semitic guests, content that's just generally extremely paranoid sounding.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: I know you've known Tucker since, you know, 1997, you
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: guys sort of first crossed paths. Even I have had
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: personal interactions with Tucker where, you know, I came away
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: confused by the disconnect between The things I see and
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: hear from him on his show versus the conversation I
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: had with a guy who could.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: Be at times, you know, charming and smart and funny
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: and just seemed very normal.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: And it leads to the question, like, who is the
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: real Tucker? Does he buy the shtick? Is it the,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: you know, DC lifer, you know, who's chummy with the
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: people he demonizes? Or is it the persona we see
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: on the show? Where have you landed on this sort
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: of like fundamental question?
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: I think the guy you see on his show today
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 4: is who he is. He's not chummy with DC people anymore,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 4: I don't think. You know, I think that he, during
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 4: the first Trump presidency, he really, I think he realized
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 4: that the place that he kind of held in, you know,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 4: in Washington society was no longer tenable because of Trump.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, he was always kind of the, you know,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: like the invited skunk to the garden party, you know,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 4: like liberal DC people would have him for dinner parties
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 4: and go out with him and be friends with him.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: And he would say outrageous things and they were just going, oh,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 4: that's Tucker. But I think when Trump came into office,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 4: that was really no longer tenable. And it got to
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 4: the point that he had to leave DC. And when
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 4: he left DC, he cut off all of his contact
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: with those people. And he now lives in a very
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 4: kind of hermetically sealed world, you know, up in Maine
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 4: and down in Florida.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: Like on an island, literally in Maine.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: An island in Maine and an island in Florida. Same,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: you know, same deal. And, you know, and his social circle,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: you know, he's kind of traded in like Bill Kristol
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: for like Don Jr. I mean, his whole social world
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 4: is completely, you know, It's all MAGA people. It's all,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: you know, podcasters and the like.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: It's not a– Ugh, horrible.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 4: Conservative podcasters or, you know, like– He's out with the
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 4: NPR crew.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. Yes, he's– yeah.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: I've also heard though, you know, there was some– there
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: was one point right before Tucker left where a bunch
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: of protesters went to his home. I think maybe banged
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: on the door, frightened his– Tucker's wife when Tucker wasn't home.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: And I was told that that was an incredibly– radicalizing
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: experience for him.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: Do you think that's right?
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 4: That was the final straw.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, up until that point, like he had, you know,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: he was having a hard time, like, you know, he'd
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 4: go to like the dog park and people would curse
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: him out. Like he could no longer eat at the Palm,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: which is his favorite restaurant. I know, I know he
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 4: had to go to the prime rib. So these are,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 4: these are harsh. I think he was, he was upset
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 4: about this, but when the protesters came to his house,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 4: that really, I think that sort of was a line
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 4: in the sand for him. I mean, but you know,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: he's completely spun this story about how, It was horrible
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: that protesters came to his house and frightened his wife,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: but he makes it sound like, you know, the D.C.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 4: sort of political class supported that. And that actually is
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 4: not the case. I mean, everybody denounced that. Like, even
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 4: people that he was, you know, at war with, like,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 4: you know, Max Boot and people like that, you know, said, like,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 4: you shouldn't do this. But he's sort of allied at
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 4: that and just kind of lumps them all in together.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: Similar related question. So as Tucker has gone into independent media,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: he has pushed the envelope. further and further to the
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: right in terms of booking guests and talking about subjects
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: that might otherwise have been seen as just like out
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: of bounds, certainly out of bounds for Fox News. Like
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: a couple examples are there was an extremely cushy interview
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: with Vladimir Putin in 2024 that included like segments like praising,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a Russian supermarket and that kind of like
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: Russian system. There was this open embrace of the great
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: replacement theory, which is this anti-Semitic theory that suggests, you know,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are trying to bring in new voters to
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: replace others and the.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: World is controlled by Jews.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, and then, you know, most recently, like there was
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Tucker's again, very, very soft interview with, uh, this neo-Nazi
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: named Nick Fuentes, um, who again, like, you know, was known,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: but touch the guy a year or two ago. And
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: I think Tucker was seen as bringing him in to, um,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: the more, you know, establishment mega media world. I'm curious
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: as to why you think Tucker does this stuff. Like,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: is it that he just won't be told who he's
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: allowed to interview? Is he genuinely interested? Does he share
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: these opinions? Or is like, I don't know, is keeping
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: up with the neo-Nazi fringe how you stay current and
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: relevant in this era?
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 3: Like, I don't know, what's your view?
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, when I talk about incentive structure, I
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 4: do think that's, you know, that's an instance of this.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 4: I do think, you know, I think Tucker's calculating that
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 4: is how you stay current. You know, he, in sort
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 4: of creating this new media company that he has in
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 4: this video podcast, like he does not, he can't, he
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 4: doesn't have Fox's built in audience anymore. And, you know,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 4: in the intention economy, which he's proven to be kind
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 4: of a master of, like you need to generate outrage. And,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 4: and one of the ways you generate outrage is you
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 4: have guests like, you know, Vladimir Putin or, you know,
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 4: Andrew Tate or Alex Jones, you have these guys on
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 4: because people are going to pay attention to that. They're
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 4: going to tune in. So I do think that's part
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 4: of his strategy. I mean, I also think, you know,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 4: at Fox, like he, he, Roger Ailes always had this
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 4: rule that no one was bigger than the network. Tucker,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 4: who came along after Ailes was gone, he violated that rule.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 4: He did become bigger than the network in a lot
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 4: of ways. There were a lot of lines that he
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 4: crossed there, and then they just kept on moving the
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 4: line to allow him to cross. That said, now there
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: are no guardrails. People talk about the second Trump term
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: and how there are no guardrails anymore. I think that
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 4: applies to Tucker just as much. There's no one to
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 4: tell him no.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 3: He doesn't.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: He doesn't have bosses. It's not a publicly traded company.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: There are no shareholders to worry about. They actually bought back.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 4: They paid off all the investors who originally invested.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: In the company.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 4: They bought it back from them. He truly has no bosses.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 4: At the same time, he's very responsive to where he
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 4: thinks the audience is. The Fuentes thing is a really
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 4: fascinating example because He was in this huge feud with Fuentes.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 4: He called him– he said he was a fed. He
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 4: called him gay. I mean he was like attacking him
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 4: on his show and then Fuentes fired back. And I
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 4: think Tucker was losing. Like I think he kind of
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 4: saw like via social media that Fuentes' fans were taking
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 4: Fuentes' side. And Tucker realized that like– or at least
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 4: he thinks that you can't be successful in that world
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 4: unless you have the Groypers and the neo-Nazis on your side.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 4: And so he had Fuentes on his show. and did
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 4: this softball interview with him I think is kind of
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 4: like an olive branch to try to defuse the feud
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 4: because he was worried that he was going to lose
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 4: these people. I think a lot of that is what's
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 4: driving him is this idea that this is where the
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 4: audience is and he's trying to sort of skate to
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 4: where he thinks the puck is going to be and
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 4: he I think is making the calculus that it's going
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 4: to be with these sort of more extreme people.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: And look, this is, again, why Tucker is so, I think,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: uniquely powerful in the mega media world. I think a
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: lot of people would argue uniquely dangerous to our political discourse,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: because I don't know if you saw this, but over
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: the weekend, there were a bunch of videos that Nick
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: Fuentes and these other absolute loser douchebag, like neo-Nazi misogynist,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: horrible people. They all went to a club in Miami
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: and posted videos of themselves singing a song by Kanye
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: West called Heil Hitler. And, and doing Nazi salutes and,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like, and, you know, these with the Tate
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: brothers who are accused of rape, I mean, vile people. And,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if Tucker is seen as like the biggest
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: force in the MAGA media world, and he is kind
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: of bringing someone like Fuentes and those individuals into the
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: fold of the MAGA world, while also somehow maintaining a
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: relationship with JD Vance, the current vice president who was
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: attacked in the most racist terms possible.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: By Nick Fuentes.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: It just like, it feels like those two things shouldn't
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: be able to be true, but I, it's, it's quite.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: Dangerous to me. Yeah, no.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean, I did see that video. It
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 4: was sort of like the final straw for me. I'd
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: been like resisting having to learn who clavicular was. And
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: now like I broke down this weekend and read about it.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 4: So I'm sure he'll be a guest on Tucker's show soon. Um,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 4: you know, advances Vance and Tucker, I think are very similar. One,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, they actually are like genuine friends. I think
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 4: they actually share a lot of the same kind of
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 4: views and resentments. And, um, the way Vance has responded
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 4: to the Fuentes. I mean, Fuentes going on Tucker's show
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 4: was– I mean, it's kind of crazy how that episode
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 4: triggered this response and this kind of civil war within
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 4: the conservative movement. I mean, people sort of forget that
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 4: Fuentes had dinner with Donald Trump in 2022. No one
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 4: responded to that the way they're responding to Tucker hosting
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 4: him on his podcast, which I think is really interesting.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 4: It's either– People are kind of virtue signaling and they
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 4: think it's easier to attack Tucker than it is to
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 4: attack Trump. Or, and I think this is actually like
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 4: a real view, I think there are a lot of
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 4: people in the conservative movement, especially Jewish conservatives, who are
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 4: more fearful of Tucker and where Tucker is going than
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: they are of Trump. They think Trump, at the end
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 4: of the day, will be with them. What they're worried
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 4: is what's going to happen after Trump and where Tucker
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 4: is taking Trump. the Republican party and the conservative movement. And,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think in their view, taking JD
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 4: Vance along with him, um, that the Tucker Vance relationship,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 4: I think is, is something that troubles a lot of,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 4: of conservatives, um, people who, and you know, it's different
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 4: kind of trouble. Like some people like really like Vance
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 4: and they're like, why is he going along with Tucker?
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 4: You know, Tucker's going to really like lead him to
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 4: the wrong place. But, you know, I think Vance is
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 4: going along pretty willingly. And I think the way Vance
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 4: who you're right. I mean, the, the things Fuentes has
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 4: said about Vance himself, Much less about his wife.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: And J.D. Vance just, you know, he once back.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 4: During the campaign, I think he said something kind of
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: nasty or not even that nasty. He just said that,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 4: you know, Doug Fuentes was a loser. But now he
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 4: will not take the bait. You know, at that Turning
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 4: Point conference where Ben Shapiro showed up and kind of
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 4: read the riot act to Tucker and, you know, Fuentes
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 4: and all these people when it was Vance's turn to speak.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 4: he completely wussed out, you know, and he said, I'm
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 4: not here to cancel anybody. And I think that's, he's,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 4: he's made, I think the calculus that Tucker's made that
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 4: you can't succeed in conservative politics these days and in
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 4: the Republican party without, without the neo-Nazis on your side.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 3: That is scary and pathetic.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: And I won't, you know, make you go into all
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: the foreign policy implications, but Tucker definitely has a very, um,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: very different, uh, view on us support for Israel and,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: you know, whether the U S should be sending money
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: and weapons to Israel, then, others than Republican Party. And
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: so the stakes are quite large there from a foreign
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: policy perspective. But final question for you in the big
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: picture is, you know, I've wondered whether Tucker would run
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: for office himself, especially run for president. I kind of
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: wondered if Trump hadn't run again. I was where you
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: were when I assumed Tucker might.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that's possibly in the cards?
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: It's a very different life than what he's got going
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: on currently. You can't do it from Maine.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 3: Ah, I don't know. Can you?
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, seriously, I mean, I feel like the way
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: our politics are going, I mean, you know, you don't
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 4: have to be on the campaign trail every day. You
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 4: can just, you know, sit in a studio and, you know,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 4: put out tweets and the like. I think that– I
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 4: think it is possible to do it that way. I mean,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 4: you have to do some travel. But, you know, he
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 4: did that. I mean, he had his arena tour in 2024. But,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, like putting aside kind of like the logistics,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that– look, he– I think it's
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 4: important to think of him not as a media figure,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 4: but almost as a political operator. I mean, because that's
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 4: kind of the way he runs his media operation. And
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 4: he doesn't just want to be a podcaster. And, you know,
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 4: I think he really wants to change the country. And
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 4: I think the question for him is going to be,
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 4: can he do that without actually running for office for himself?
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 4: And like right now, he has this very, you know, tight,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 4: symbiotic relationship with J.D. Vance.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 5: J.D.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 4: Vance is saying a lot of the things that Tucker says,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: maybe lowering the really nasty stuff a little bit, toning
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 4: it down a little bit, but still very much in
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 4: line with what Tucker says and believes. I think J.D.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 4: Vance worries a lot about what Tucker thinks and what
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 4: Tucker's reaction is going.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: To be to things.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, if Tucker is confident that one, J.D.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 4: Vance will stay allied with him and two, that he
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 4: could get elected, yeah, he probably doesn't need to do
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 4: it himself. But at a certain point, if he feels
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 4: like Vance is maybe not going to follow the line
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 4: that Tucker wants, or I think even more sort of
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 4: like plausibly is not a particularly good politician and can't
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 4: get elected, then yeah, I could totally see Tucker doing it.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 4: And I think the.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: The way you would run.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 4: For president now is so different than it was, you know,
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 4: four years ago, eight years ago, 12 years ago that
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 4: in a way, like, I mean, Trump is just, you, you,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 4: you're a media figure now and that, and that's the way,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 4: that's the way Tumper could do it. Um, I mean,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 4: he'd probably have to get out of his bubble a
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 4: little bit, but not, not as much as maybe, you know,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 4: you might think.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 3: You'd have to, you'd have to hit the road.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're certainly right that having a built in audience,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: having a studio to broadcast from like that, that's a lot,
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it's influencer piece. There are a bunch of like,
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: you know, security concerns, you know, lifestyle concerns, increased scrutiny
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure no one would enjoy, but maybe it's
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: worth it for power.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, he wants power. I mean, he, look, he,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: he believes what he's saying. I think, I think that's
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 4: sort of one sort of takeaway from the book. I
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 4: hope people get is like, you need to, to, you
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 4: can have the debate. Like, did he, did he always
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 4: believe it? Did he sort of, you know, do this
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 4: out of cynicism, but, He's been saying it long enough now,
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 4: and he's been successful in saying it, that I think
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 4: it's just sort of human nature to start to believe it.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 4: And you talk to enough people around him, this is
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 4: what he believes. These are his views about what he
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 4: thinks the country should be doing, where it should be headed.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 4: And he believes them in some ways more deeply, I think,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 4: than a lot of people in Donald Trump's world do.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 4: He's not He's not aligning himself with Trump to protect
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 4: his bottom line or increase his company's shareholder value. He
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 4: wants these things that Trump says he wants in terms
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 4: of the character of the country and the like. I
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 4: think he's going to do what he has to do
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 4: that he thinks he has to do to make that happen,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 4: to achieve that goal.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess there will be a lot to watch
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: in the future. There's so much more in the book
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: that we could have talked about. There's some understanding of
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: Tucker's mom and the way she essentially abandoned their family
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: and how he blames liberalism for that. There's the relationship
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: with Viktor Orban in Hungary. And basically, I mean, the
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: title of the book, Hated by All the Right People.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: is a reference to, you know, I think a line
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson said about Victor Orban, right?
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and a toast to Victor Orban. Like he was, yeah,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 4: he was eating dinner with him and that was his
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 4: toast to Victor Orban. You're truly hated by all the
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 4: right people.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 3: And now Orban is like a darling on the right.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: And I think Tucker has a direct line in that.
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: And again, so everyone should buy the book, Hated by
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: the Conservative Mind.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 3: Pre-order it now. Get it while it's hot. It's an
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: incredible book. You will be fascinated, but also learn a
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 3: lot about Tucker and this political moment that we're in.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 3: Jason Zengerle, great to see you. Thank you for writing it.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 4: Thanks a lot for having me on.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to Jason for coming on. Remember,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 3: you can pre-order Hated by All the Right People at crooked.com
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: slash books. or pick up the book wherever you shop
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 3: when it releases on January 27th. Dan and I will
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 3: be back in your feed on Friday. If you want
• 1:51:34
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• 1:51:36
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• 1:51:39
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• 1:51:52
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• 1:51:56
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• 1:52:00
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